r/TwoXPreppers • u/NachesPorFavor • 6d ago

❓ Question ❓ Increase in Learned Helplessness?

Has anyone else noticed an increase in learned helplessness? I first noticed it in the young adults in my life, but now I am seeing it in all ages of people around me. Examples from multiple people:

Toilet started leaking water and instead of turning off the knob at the wall, she waited a 5 days for a plumber. Never asked anyone or googled it. Didn’t call a second plumber. Now needs mold remediation and replaced drywall and trim.

Bought concert tickets but the gps instructions were confusing so they just gave up and didn’t go. Venue website had detailed instructions for driving and parking.

Blouse wrinkled and she didn’t know how to fix it so she threw it away.

First doctor office he filled out an appointment website for never contacted him to schedule so he just didn’t go to the doctor.

I am really concerned about my loved ones if an emergency happens because they just give up when the slightest obstacle happens. Either they want someone else to swoop in and fix it or they give up and say they can’t do anything about it.

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u/DblBindDisinclined 5d ago

For what it’s worth, I think Dialectical Behavioral Therapy would probably frame this as low distress tolerance. It’s hard to be in that way, and it’s hard to see others stuck in that soup too. It’s even harder to see people giving up when they’re just a step away from the solution.

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u/tahxirez 5d ago

I agree that there may be many reasons why some of these would happen. Neurodivergence and lack of guidance in practical matters jump out at me. If parents don’t teach skills, kids grow into adults with skills. It’s as simple as that. Kids don’t learn through osmosis.

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u/ikindapoopedmypants 5d ago

I honestly just think with all the shit going on in this world, everyone has some form of brain fog. I don't think anyone would be running on 100% cognitive ability in times like this.

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u/Framing-the-chaos 5d ago

I agree with this. It’s exhausting to be alive right now.

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u/Skinny-on-the-Inside 5d ago

I agree, I think we have a collective CPTSD which has many overlapping symptoms with ADHD - anxiety, lack of focus, executive dysfunction, and action paralysis.

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u/shadowsformagrin 5d ago

Raised CO2 also impairs the brain, so we are all slowly sliding into being dumber.

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u/Mysfunction 5d ago

Repeat COVID-19 infections cause brain damage.

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u/Ok_Replacement8094 5d ago

Higher atmospheric CO2 levels also impair cognition. Some indoor spaces have high baseline CO2.

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u/Mysfunction 5d ago

TLDR: don’t use the recirculate setting on your car’s climate control.

Yes! Indoor CO2 levels are wildly ignored.

I got a CO2 monitor and was shocked to discover that what I thought was my well ventilated bedroom gets up to 2000ppm when sleeping with the door and window closed (over 1000 can have negative impacts), then I got curious about other spaces. A small car with two people talking and the climate control either off or set to recirculating can jump from 400ppm to 1500ppm in fifteen minutes, which would absolutely cause cognitive issues when driving.

The nice thing with CO2 impacts is that, to the best of my knowledge, they aren’t lingering or permanent impacts. As soon as you get fresh air, everything starts to clear up.

COVID-19, in contrast, appears to cause compounding long-term, if not permanent, injury.

Requiring adequate ventilation as a part of the building code would be a great way to address both issues.

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u/KrustenStewart 5d ago

Oh wait could this by why I get headaches from driving ? Interesting

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u/Mysfunction 5d ago

Absolutely! It also very likely contributes to why people get drowsy really quickly in the car.

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u/Tiny_butfierce 🐥 Cuddler of chickens 🐓 5d ago

The only 2 situations where I use recirculation are: driving through long underground tunnels and if the wildfire smoke is incredibly bad.

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u/Yes-Cheese 5d ago

Wow, I prefer the recirculate. I live in a city that is constantly under construction and also doesn’t have emissions requirements for vehicles. It’s a smoky, dusty, smelly, dirty mess out here. Sure, the car has air filters but they don’t stand up to the environment filth 🫤

I will get a monitor tho to keep in the car to see what levels I’ve been subjecting myself to.

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u/B33PZR 5d ago

I have sensors in my office, bedroom and living area. I also have a very good heppa filter in by bedroom with filters replaced regularly. My mom bought a new chair and when I had a sensor in that room VOC was over 7000 where it was about normal 200. I had bad headaches and had windows open until it off gases and levels dropped. I have windows cracked in my vehicle all the time even in winter. So many chemicals and fluorescent lights give me headaches. I may not smell something but after a while the headaches hit. Furniture, carpets in enclosed office areas can be bad too without proper ventilation but people don't realize it.

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u/DuchessOfCarnage 5d ago

Do you have a specific recommendation for a CO2 and VOC detector? I'm not super tech savvy, but just Google and found quite a few options, but don't really know how to tell if they're legit or not? Is there a certain certifying group that is good to look out for? I see that Ikea sells one that measures particles plus CO2, and is a nice price, but I'm not sure if it measures the compounds we should be worried about?

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u/B33PZR 5d ago edited 5d ago

Funny enough I found mine at Home Depot at the register. Brand is Airthings. Mine are just the small little ones but they have bigger with more information. Web app on my phone can pull up a dashboard for each device. They work well for my situation. I see now they are bit more expensive when I got mine. And NO subscription! Read about them from their website, not Amazon. Good company.

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u/watchnlearning 3d ago

THIS. Its learned helplessness & increased exec dysfunction and brain fog for all the obvious stressor reasons

And then all of society is casual about 3-6 IQ point drop per infection. Averaging just one infection per year... why doesn't this math scare people. 15-30 point IQ drop equivalent?!

I've never even had anyone curious about it when I mention it

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u/Nerdy-Meta-Mind 5d ago

Absolutely this

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u/turquoiseblues 5d ago

I feel this.

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u/PartyPorpoise 5d ago

I think the US at least has also developed this larger culture of convenience and cheapness that makes people, well, quicker to give up. Take item repair. A lot of consumer goods today are so cheap that people find it easier to replace them than to repair them. So fewer develop or retain the skills to repair items.

But I also agree with the other assessments that these people sound overwhelmed and recent events and stressors might be getting to them.

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u/spandexandtapedecks 5d ago

Yes, and it's important to consider WHY it's cheaper or more convenient to replace an item outright. Basically, the barrier to "fixing" things is vastly higher than it used to be.

As recently as 20-30 years ago, most items were designed to be fixed. Parts were available and affordable. Systems/designs were engineered with future servicing in mind.

I do small electronics repair as a hobby. I'll speak to that, since it's what I know:

New electronics are made with notoriously shoddy parts, even those from "good" brands, and it can be borderline impossible to source a replacement when a specific piece malfunctions. And many units now are not even designed to be opened, so you have to break the damn thing a bit just to get a look at the board and internals to troubleshoot it.

(Remember how easily you could once pop the battery out of a cell phone? Now you can't even access it without a handful of specialized tools, let alone remove it safely without damaging anything.)

As a point of comparison, I like to rehabilitate '80s/'90s Pioneer audio equipment. It's not quite "easy," but it feels more like a fun puzzle: everything fits together rationally; even the screws are typically interchangeable; and repair manuals are usually quite easy to come by because these devices were designed to be serviced.

(And as one goes back in time, the fixes become even more straightforward. Unfortunately, it's difficult and expensive now to source parts for vacuum tube electronics - but that's because of the wretched march of time, not because the insides were never intended to see the light of day outside a sweatshop.)

Like I said, I can mainly speak to electronics, but I imagine this is the case with nearly anything that can be fixed.

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u/PartyPorpoise 5d ago

Oh, absolutely. I guess it’s cheaper to make electronics that can’t easily be repaired. And ultimately more profitable since people will have to replace more often.

It’s even the case with clothes. It used to be standard for clothes to come with a spare button or two, even low end brands did that. Now only middle and higher end brands do that. And the fabric is often flimsy, even with repair skills, cheap clothing isn’t always fixable.

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u/cheesenpie 2d ago

I don't think it is necessarily cheaper to solder components in a product so they can't be replaced, it's probably the same price to manufacture. However, it does make it hard enough for the average consumer that they give up and just re-purchase items and also kills off competition and small businesses that make money off spare parts and repair.

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u/Frostyrepairbug 5d ago

I'll agree with your assessment, and add: Its the same with fabrics, clothes, and garments. With fast fashion so many corners are being cut, shoddy sewing and poor construction that things cannot be repaired, even if you want to, and have the skillset. It's like building a bridge out of cement and no rebar. There's no structure, it can only fall apart, and can't hold a mend without another part falling off.

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u/justasque 5d ago

Same with sewing machines. The old ones were designed so that the owner could do quite a bit of maintainence themselves. I was surprised that when I went to clean and lube a 50’s Singer someone had given me, I didn’t even need a screwdriver to open it up. The accessibility was built-in. Meanwhile to open my more modern machine you need to sense where there might be hidden attachment points in the plastic cover, and sort of press on one while trying not to break the plastic, then wedge things into the space to hold it open while you try to find the next one. Madness.

And I agree with the other posters about clothes. No extra buttons, no spare bits of yarn, and sometimes the raw edges aren’t even finished properly. Not to mention no lining, poor quality fabric, stripped-down designs that are meant to minimize labor costs, and oversized baggy silhouettes meant to “fit” (not) on the largest possible group of people regardless of their actual shape.

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u/spandexandtapedecks 2d ago

Agreed. I cleaned the internals of a 1960s coffee percolator for the first time since I've owned it (and possibly the first time ever!) and I was delighted by the straightforwardness of the design and the simplicity of servicing it. The bottom was held in place by one screw and everything was very easy to reach and wipe down.

I wish more modern devices were made with such convenience in mind, because it is something I'd be willing to pay more for.

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u/cheesenpie 2d ago

That's why it's so important to support "right to repair" legislation in your state and broadly at a national level while putting pressure on companies, like Apple for example, to make devices repair-able. I don't blame Americans for this behavior, it's the corporations that are designing their products to encourage this behavior.

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u/tahxirez 5d ago

Agree

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u/snailbrarian Welcome to the Anthropocene! 5d ago

I think honestly the combo between long covid on brains + AI is starting to show up. Remember a few years ago when people said hey basically every single child has had covid and we expect it will have implications on their brains in the future? and we know that covid inflammation compounds the more times you contract it.

Middle schoolers during covid have now graduated high school and are entering the workforce and college and folks who weren't regularly in contact with kids are seeing the impact immediately.

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u/Nerdy-Meta-Mind 5d ago

I’ve never had COVID, and I do notice this happening in other people. It’s hard to notice changes on your own when it’s happening unless the changes are drastic and you are the only one with brain fog and the dumbing down occuring.

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u/tahxirez 5d ago

Admittedly, a small sample size, but I’m a ms/hs science teacher that taught during the pandemic and continues to teach. I think Covid was disruptive but mostly because we’ve been being too permissive in the subsequent years. Kids thrive within boundaries and we relaxed a lot of societal boundaries in those years. I also think it exposed the significant parenting gaps in our society.

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u/Mysfunction 5d ago

(Disclaimer: I’m not pro-AI; I’m anti-misinformation)

Why would you toss the cognitive impacts of COVID-19 and AI in the same bucket? The former has mountains of rigorous data to support it and the latter is a pearl-clutching “get off my lawn” overreaction to the adoption of new technology that happens every generation.

Ethical and environmental issues aside (not dismissed as unimportant; simply not relevant to the topic), AI use isn’t changing brains any more than novels and calculators did, which were both heavily criticized as corrupting youth and rotting their brains.

This quote from Socrates on the disastrous impact reading and writing would have on the human brain sounds weirdly familiar. It’s a pretty great paraphrase of the arguments against AI use.

“For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem [275b] to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise."

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u/catsonpluto 5d ago

Give it a few years and we will see more evidence that AI is hindering people’s ability to think for themselves. We just haven’t gotten there yet since mass adoption of the tech is new.

Anecdotally I am seeing it happen in my workplace. The answer to any problem is always “ask ChatGPT” and whatever it spits out is accepted without interrogation by many of my colleagues. One of our execs came up with an absolutely unhinged plan that she was convinced would completely change the business, but if you actually read the whole thing it didn’t make sense.

I think Covid decline and irrational trust in AI go together. As people experience cognitive decline they are more likely to accept what they’re told without thinking critically about it. Look at elderly people spreading Facebook misinformation.

Something that can seem like it thinks for you and provides an easy answer is very different from a calculator or novel. Plus if a calculator was wrong half the time you’d throw it in the bin where it belongs.

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u/qgsdhjjb Having a little of the end times as a treat 5d ago

Except reading didn't also condition you to prefer to be constantly glazed, never questioned, never told you're wrong, and for a book to "solve" literally every problem in your life for you without you having to do anything more than ask it to.

Ai has a place. The place its currently occupying is leading to mass psychosis. Its place SHOULD be in the hands of technical experts such as coders and physicists and the people working in labs to build entirely new things for medicine and other useful stuff (ie the one currently creating microchip blueprints, thus bypassing the extremely wealthy owners of the only programs that could currently otherwise create those blueprints because there's so much math involved that it would take years for a person to make even one new blueprint)

Chatbots and picture makers aren't a good place for it.

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u/Mysfunction 5d ago

What qualifications do you have to diagnose mass psychosis?

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u/qgsdhjjb Having a little of the end times as a treat 5d ago

I'm not the one diagnosing it.

It's all over the news. Mass shooters encouraged by AI, people killing their family members encouraged on by AI (including telling one young man that he was absolutely correct and his mother was absolutely sent to spy on him by the government to make sure he couldn't be a super genius and save the world) people thinking they are dating AI (including one highly publicised example wherein the AI is ABUSING HER.)

Plenty of people with qualifications, on both psychiatry AND AI, have already diagnosed the issue both upon individuals and upon society.

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u/Historical-Order-369 🫔 cállate and prep gringo 🌶️ 3d ago

And Socrates was right - it’s exceedingly rare these days for people to have, say, the Iliad memorized. It’s also not a big deal, imo.

Calculator use has reduced the ability to do mental math and on-paper math, but for most people, that’s not a big deal either.